Free Vs Reality by Blake Northcott Page B

so special about that punch, in that alley?”
    “All we know for sure,” Paige explains, “is that the first time we trigger it’s almost always caused by a traumatic or highly stressful incident: like an overdose, a painful injury, or watching someone die. These events cause a massive spike in adrenaline, cortical; our brain chemistry literally changes who we are in that moment.”
    Cole raises his eyebrows. “Huh. So if I want to trigger I just need someone to try and kill me? That should be easy enough, especially if I keep hanging around with Dia.”
    She continues to conceal her bruise, pretending to ignore the comment, but her lips curl at the edges.
    “The first time it happens spontaneously, in a wild burst of energy. It’s the biochemical equivalent of a lightning strike.” Paige continues, “It’s unpredictable, and it’s an almost impossible experience to replicate. But if you want to manage it – to control it – you need something to adjust your brain chemistry accordingly.” She gestures to her right. “And that’s where our irritating sidekick Brodie comes in.”
    Brodie leans forward in his recliner. “First of all, I’m nobody’s sidekick, lady.” He turns towards Cole. “Okay, so here’s the short version of the story: a couple years ago I get accepted into Princeton.”
    “He just waits around all day for opportunities to tell people that,” Paige groans.
    “ Anyway ,” Brodie says, firing Paige an icy glance, “as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, being a chemistry major in an Ivy League University turned out to be a little more expensive than I’d previously anticipated. Especially after my parents cut me off mid-semester. So I created a part time job to pay for my tuition fees.”
    “So you were a drug dealer,” Cole said; a statement, not a question. The words sounded uglier coming out of his mouth than they did in his head.
    Brodie shrugs. “Well, that’s one way to put it I suppose. I preferred to think of myself as a ‘freelance pharmaceutical designer and distributor’…but that’s not the point of this story, bro.”
    “Sorry,” Cole says with a tiny wince. “Go on.”
    “So, one day I’m sitting in my dorm, running quality assurance tests on some of the merchandise. I must have miscalculated the dosage because I passed out, cracking my head on the edge of my desk. I wake up and suddenly things start floating around my room: my desk gets stuck to the ceiling; my chair and lamp sailed out the window. Even I was floating, just hanging there, suspended in mid-air. It’s like I was screwing with the entire universe just by changing my brain chemistry, but the effects were localized to my room.”
    “So you accidentally figured out how to make a pill that works as a trigger? And that’s how you can all keep manifesting whenever you want.”
    Brodie cracks a wide grin and kicks out the footrest on his recliner, lacing his fingers behind his head. “Exactamundo. Good find, Dia. For a noob he catches on pretty quick.”
    Paige pulls a transparent plastic bag from her pocket and tears it open, extracting a single blue pill. She holds it up between her thumb and forefinger, allowing Cole to take a closer look.
    “This is my own personal creation,” Brodie says, his voice thick with pride. “I call it ‘Muse’: one-hundred percent guaranteed inspiration. It pulls the trigger and lets you hold your manifestation. The only side-effect I can find is that you get the munchies after a few hits…but that could have just been from a couple other tests I was running.”
    Paige drops the pill into Cole’s palm. He squints at the tiny capsule, as if looking closer will reveal something special about its contents. But there is nothing unusual about it, as far as he can tell. It could be an aspirin if not for the distinctive, bright blue color. “Back in the alley,” he whispers, eyes laser focused on the pill, “when I grew, became more muscular…it